US offers India technology to exploit shale gas

Washington: In a major initiative Washington has offered India and China its expertise in exploring and exploiting shale gas resources. The move is aimed at helping both nations considerably reduce their dependence on oil and gas imports.

Briefing media representatives at the Global Shale Gas Initiative Conference here in Washington, David Goldwyn, the Obama administration's coordinator for International Energy Affairs, said, ''Coincident with prime minister Singh's visit to the US, we launched a memorandum of understanding with India on shale gas.

And we have proposed... that the US Geological Survey (USGS) do a resource assessment of certain shale basins in India.''

Goldwyn said that the USGS would also train Indian geophysicists to enable them to professionally assess shale resources. This cooperation, he said, would be within the overall ambit of the US-India Strategic Dialogue.

"What we have offered to India is to bring our best knowledge about how you make that estimate, how you make that resource evaluation, and to bring our scientists to them to talk about that," Goldwyn said.

"We are waiting for India's reaction and we're hopeful that they'll do it.''